Chapter 21

4 days earlier

"You got a plan?", Lori asked as she met up with Shane behind the barn.

"Yeah, I'm taking her on a supply run. Already ran it by Rick and he's gonna ask her to go. Told him we're gonna go looking for baby stuff. He liked that idea. The only problem is that T-Dog is coming, too."

"T-Dog? How are you going to do this with T-Dog there? Don't you think he'll have something to say about you trying to get rid of her?" Lori whispered aggressively.

"Calm down, I can handle it, alright? He's not gonna know anything foul went on behind his back,... Now, are you really sure you want this?" he asked her. He needed her to be sure, because he had doubts.

"Are you telling me you don't? How many times do I have to tell you, Shane? That woman in there is not who she pretends to be. She is dangerous. Nothing about her adds up. Don't you trust me?"

"I do, but,... man, taking that kid's mom from him,..." Shane sighed. It didn't feel right, but he trusted Lori and Lori felt that Jarah was a danger to the group and he didn't want any potential dangers around their baby.

"Who knows if that is even her kid, Shane. He looks nothing like her. And those stories about her pregnancy and birth? Please... Sounds like she read that in a book or something."

"Dixon said he knew her before, saw her pregnant!", Shane argued.

"And what a coincidence that she would hook up with him of all people. He is lying for her. She probably killed that kid's parents right at the start of this thing and took him with her to gain easier access into groups. She must have been with other groups, do you really think she would have made it alone with a kid all this time? And the way she fights? She took down Daryl for God's sake. Did you see that bruise she gave him? It was peeking out from his shirt. Why would a woman know how to fight like that? Her whole behavior is weird, she's got to have ulterior motives. She needs to go, before she takes my baby, too. You want that Shane? Do you want her to take away what might be yours?" Lori knew how to get in Shane's head and with those words, she had sealed Jarah's fate. She had convinced Shane that Jarah was a problem that had to be taken care of.

Shane would do anything for Lori. Anything it would take to protect her and his baby. He was sure it was his. For them he would kill twice in the next couple of days. First he was going to grant Lori her wish and make Jarah disappear and after that, he was going to do something for himself. No one would be standing in his way to start his own family with Lori.

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Present day

"No."

That's all that went through Daryl's shell-shocked mind. It was the only thing he said, while he held back tears. He was chewing on the inside of his bottom lip, shaking his head.

"No... No... No..." he repeated over and over. His voice eerily calm.

"Daryl maybe we should go inside and..." Rick was interrupted by the hunter's voice, this time it was louder and firmer again.

"No. She ain't dead! I'm going to that house. She needs help!" Daryl brushed past Rick to get to his bike. The group looking on with pitying looks as Rick sprinted after him, grabbing his arm.

"Daryl, there is nothing you can do. It's almost dark! You can't go back there now."

"Nothing left of her to go back for anyway." Shane muttered, but it was loud enough for Daryl to hear. He charged at Shane, who soon found himself being pressed against the side of the car, Daryl's hand squeezing his throat.

"Where's her knife, Walsh?" Daryl was seething. He knew Shane had something to do with it. He was acting exactly like he had the day he had come back without Otis.

"What are you going on about? Why would I know where her fucking knife is?" Shane choked out.

"When you killed Otis, you brought back his gun... You did it again, didn't you? Sacrificed her to save yourself?"

"Daryl stop,... It's not Shane's fault... It's not anyone's fault nowadays. Things like that happen." Rick tried to pried the hunter away from his best friend.

"Not to Jarah, they don't. She's too careful to get herself killed by walkers." Daryl argued. "That's why we need to go there. NOW!"

"I SAW her getting killed, Dixon! There's no use in going back there! The place is swarmed!" Shane yelled at him.

Daryl whirled around and punched Shane hard in the face, making him stagger back against the car. "You best shut up and pray that she's still alive. I'm going. I'm gonna kill every single one of those fucking walkers myself if I have to."

"You won't have to" T-Dog spoke up, "I'll go with you. Show you which house she was in."

"You're all crazy. She is gone. No fucking body no nothing. Why go back? It's fucking stupid! Rick, man, you're just wasting fuel. There's nothing to be found in that house." Shane tried to convince him to keep the guys from going.

Rick shook his head. He could empathize with Daryl and he would try to help him get some closure, but at night it was too high of a risk.

"We'll go in the morning. I'll go with you. I promise we'll go, but we can't right now Daryl. You gotta understand that. And there's a little boy in there who needs you more than ever now."

Jamie. Daryl's blood ran cold. He couldn't face him right now. He would break down if he saw the little dude right now. He couldn't do that, not in front of him. He needed some space right now.

"Tell Beth I'll get him after dinner. Now let me be." Daryl turned around and walked towards the barn without another word. The others watched him walk away until he was out of sight. They all went inside, with the exception of Rick and Shane. Rick grabbed his arm to hold him back.

"What the hell happened?" he hissed at his best friend.

"Told you man, we checked the last house and suddenly all these walkers came stumbling in out of nowhere. Must have been about 15 or 20... enough to get trapped in there." Shane explained, trying to act casual.

"They came stumbling in? Just like that? Why would 15 or 20 walkers just go into the same house? Never seen that before." Rick wasn't stupid. He knew things. Never mentioned he did, but he knew. He knew Lori and Shane had hooked up, he knew the baby might not be his and he knew, that Shane had killed Otis. He chose to overlook the facts, because he had also saved his son and he was his best friend, but this he couldn't overlook. It was too suspicious. Daryl was right, Jarah was extremely careful. A herd like that wouldn't have been able to just sneak up on them like that. Something else must have been going down.

"What do you want me to tell you? If you wanna know why, maybe you should go ask them. See if they answer you. I need a shower and food.", Shane walked off, leaving Rick to wonder why exactly Shane would want to hurt Jarah in the first place.

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Daryl sat in a corner of their little fort in the barn with his head in his hands. He refused to believe that Jarah was dead. He KNEW she wasn't. He felt it in his bones. His girl was a fighter, she was out there and probably needed his help. Still, he was scared. What if he was wrong. He might just be in denial. What if she was dead? Or worse, what if he went back and found her turned into a walker?

There was one thing he knew for sure. Shane was lying. He didn't believe one word of that story. If she was dead he was sure that it wasn't the walkers who had killed her, but Shane himself. The only question was why he wanted to kill her. She had never spoken more than two words to him. It was just crazy. He didn't know what to think anymore. Maybe they did get trapped after all,...

Daryl shook himself out of it. He really wasn't ready to think of her as dead. He would only believe that if they found something that would indicate that she was. Until then he would look for her, just like he had looked for Sophia. He would find her and bring her back to her family. One way or another.

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Daryl kept his word and went back to Beth's room after dinner to get Jamie. He could already hear him crying from the hallway, calling for his momma. It was breaking Daryl's heart. He took another deep breath before he went in and took him from her, going back into their own room with him.

Jamie calmed down a little in Daryl's arms and even let the hunter get him ready for bed. Once he was zipped up in his sleeping bag Daryl sat down with him on the bed like they had done in the morning, holding him tight and rocking him gently.

"I'm sorry, buddy. Your momma can't make it home tonight, but don't worry, I'm going out in the morning to get her back here. Carol will stay with you. You like Carol, don't you?" Jamie was still sniffling, he felt that something wasn't right. "Don't be sad, I'm sure your momma is thinking about you and missing you all the time. Just this one night, okay? We can do it!"

It took over an hour until Jamie settled down and started to doze off. This time Daryl put him in his bed. He was too restless to be sitting still all the time. He started pacing in front of the window. His mind racing in circles. A quiet knock on the door pulled him out of his thoughts and before he could answer, Glenn poked his head in.

"Daryl, can we talk to you for a minute, Maggie's got something to tell you?" he whispered, scared of waking up Jamie.

"Not in the mood for talking!" he replied in a gruff voice.

"I know, but she saw something,..." They came in and quietly shut the door, even though Daryl didn't want them in there, but they both thought he had to know what she had seen, "I saw Shane in the bathroom. The door was opened a crack, he didn't seem to have noticed,..."

"You got a point or we just chatting about you being a fucking Peeping Tom?"

"Would you let me finish? Daryl, Shane's got a hell of a lot of fresh bruises and a cut across his arm. It doesn't look like he got those injuries by running from walkers. It looks like he was in a fight with somebody else... and T-Dog doesn't seem to have any bruises on him and they both said he stayed in the car while Shane and Jarah went into that last house..."

Daryl froze, every fiber of his being filling with rage.

"Son of a bitch... I knew he was lying through his fucking teeth. He hurt her and now she's out there, in God knows what kind of condition. Time is fucking ticking, shouldn't wait til the morning."

"Do you really think she is still alive?" Glenn asked him carefully and Daryl immediately responded with a nod.

"I KNOW she is still alive... and so does Shane." he added.

"What? What do you mean by that?" Maggie and Glenn looked at each other with furrowed brows, before their confused glances were directed at Daryl, waiting for him to explain.

"If he had killed her then Shane wouldn't have any problem with any of us going back there. He wouldn't have to fear that someone would find her and found out that he was involved. The walkers would have taken care of her for him. He didn't get to kill her, but he tried and had he succeeded that little secret would have died with her. Now there is the chance that she comes back and tells everyone what he did. That's why he doesn't want us to find her. My guess is that she got away and is hiding somewhere. And I'm gonna find her and once I get her back safely, Walsh will pay."

"I don't understand. Why would Shane want to kill Jarah? They never even talked?" Glenn still couldn't believe that Shane was THAT much off his rocker to kill anyone from the group, but his story about what happened didn't add up.

"That's what we have to figure out, but first we find her."

Glenn nodded and when Daryl turned back to the window, they left the room without another word.

'Hang in there Jar, I'm gonna find you. Just get through the night.' Daryl silently pleaded with her in his mind.

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She was cold. Unbelievably freezing cold. She had always liked the cold, but of course back then she had been able to climb back into bed, cuddle up under a warm blanket, drink a hot beverage and watch re-runs of Desperate Housewives or some shit like that. It was nice and comforting.

How she wished she was back in her old bedroom now, because there wasn't anything nice about the situation she was in right now and the dead walker that was laying on top of her didn't do anything to keep her warm. It gave her some comfort though. The comfort of knowing that it's disgusting stench of death and decay was covering up the scent of her and the blood she was losing at least to some extent. It didn't hide the sound of her teeth chattering from the cold unfortunately.

She hoped she was safe for the night, she was getting too weak to even climb the stairs in the dark basement she was hiding out in to check if the door was locked, keeping any walkers from getting down to her. She also hadn't been able to board up the window she had smashed to get into the basement in the first place, she was hurting too damn much by that point to do anything but take out the three walkers that were shuffling around in there, before collapsing in the corner furthest away from the window with one of those things on top of her, to shield her scent from other undead monsters.

She needed to rest, gain some strength back, because in the morning she had to get out of there and make her way back to the farm. She needed to get back to her son and to Daryl even if it was only to say goodbye. She didn't know how much blood she was losing, but her body was hurting all over.

The fight with Shane had been vicious. She had gotten him good a couple of times, but in the end he was much stronger than her. He'd smashed her body through a french door inside the house they were in and some of the glass had imbedded itself into her skin. She was lucky that she'd worn her leather jacket, it kept her torso safe from the potentially deadly shards, but her jeans hadn't offered the same kind of protection. Her arm was throbbing and burning like fire where the bullet had grazed her on her way to escape Shane and the walkers that were swarming the house, attracted by the noises of their fight.

"You know, I actually am sorry that I have to do this!"

His words still echoed in her head. He had said them as soon as they had entered the house.

"But you're gonna do it anyway, because Lori told you to... what is she afraid of? Or is she just mad that I'm not fawning over her and her new baby like everybody else?" she turned around to face him and found herself face to face with his gun.

"She thinks you're dangerous... that you're not who you say you are. You're a danger to the group, can't have you around anymore. Don't worry about your kid, we'll raise him like our own."

"Yeah, right. God you two deserve each other. One more crazy than the other. Too bad you can't see what's right in front of you. A woman as good as dead is using you to do her dirty work. Think she'll take you back? Never in a million years, not as long as Rick's alive."

"Good thing he is next to go then! Goodbye Jarah!"

That's when he fired for the first time, but Jarah got lucky and reacted before he pulled the trigger. She dropped to her knees, slashing his arm with her knife, making him drop the gun. They fought each other until the walkers burst in. While he was distracted she made her escape. The fucking walkers literally saved her life this time.

She just had to make it through the night. And then, once she got back to the farm, she would have to make the others believe her,... if she made it that far. Just a couple of hours and she would be able to make her way back.

If she was going to die she wanted to see Jamie and Daryl one last time.

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A/N: WOW! A lot of you were worried that I would really kill her off! Never would, promise, after all she and Daryl are just starting their relationship. Just needed to set up some stuff.

NanamiYatsumaki: She kind of did pull an Andrea:) Hope you are not too disappointed by Daryl's reaction, I know you were hoping for more and I wrote it differently this morning, but when I re-read it, it just didn't feel right so I changed it.

MyLittleMonster'sFantasy: Relax, it is all going to be alright:-)

. : Thank you so so much for your kind words. It was actually my one big goal when I decided to write this story, to keep the cheesiness out of it as much as possible. It often ruins my reading pleasure whenever I read other stories. I am glad I am on the right track to achieve that goal. If you do feel like I am starting to go into cheesy territory, please feel free to tell me:-)

katie93319: Hope the update was quick enough:-) I hope you'll be able to remain spoilerfree until you'll be able to watch the premiere. Thank you for your frequent reviews. Love it!

Last but not least, thank you to my old and new followers for their interest in my writing!